hey,First of all: I love Desktop Dungeons, being a huuuuuuge fan of the many "alpha" versions.

BUT

Having just purchased the "support-the-dev" version of the full game/beta though, I have to say: WTF guys?!

Nowhere on the purchase page did it indicate that I was purchasing only an account to play a web-game, rather than a "proper game" (you know, some files in a nice .zip that I can put on my laptop and play without internet connectivity).

This is a deal breaker given my current terrible internet connection, and it's really frustrating/annoying/infuriating to buy something only to find out that "full game" and "closed beta" actually just means "in-browser webgame".

Will the final game at least be available as a proper game, stand-alone binary?

I should mention that in the past I have e.g purchased an account for Captain Forever -- I'm not completely averse to paying for browser-only games! But in that case it was VERY clear that I was purchasing an account rather than a game.

I take issue with (a) not making it clear that this is an in-browser webgame -- and that the Unity plug-in will be required, and (b) it being Unity- rather than Flash-based -- one bloated memory-hogging browser-crashing plugin is quite enough for me thanks! It seems especially galling given that the "alpha" version was a proper easily-USB-stickable .exe.

Anyway... I can't wait for the full version, which will hopefully be something I can keep nice and safe on my hard-drive.

I've got a fast internet connection but it's prone to dropping out very frequently for half a second or so. However when these drop outs happen between the level complete screen and the menu I lose connection to the server and this in turn means that I lose all the progress for the level i've just played, which is a tad on the frustrating side.

It may of course be that this is a server side problem, I understand this is just the beta and there may be kinks that need ironed out, in which case feel free to ignore me!

I think this might be quite a common question (PC gamer's don't tend to like constant internet connection requirements, as any forum thread or commont thread about Ubisoft can attest!) so if the final version is playable offline it might be a good idea to mention it in the FAQ and save the frustration of being asked the same question over and over again.

Anyway, enjoyed what I played of the beta so far. Best of luck getting the final version all nice and polished up.

Q: I see the Beta is running in my browser. What gives?A: The Beta is going to be changing very often, as we update is with bug fixes and new content. To prevent us from having to send out endless patches, we’re going to keep it on the web during the beta phase, making roll-out much easier. Once the full is launched, there will be a stand-alone and a web client, and your save games will persist across both (given internet access)

...

So yes, the beta is web-based. The full game will have a download client AND a web client AND a phone client AND AND AND...

Connection problems probably have something to do with our server taking a bit of strain (we're moving servers at the moment to deal with the issues, hopefully) and should lighten up soon. That said, if you could be a bit more exact in what's happening when you're losing progress, we can try to make the saving system even more tolerant (it should automatically keep an offline version of your progress until it can reconnect again, so it shouldn't be losing ANY wins at all, that's bad).

I definitely think this sort of thing should be in bold allcaps on the purchase page.

Also, that official answer is a bit weak: updating the web version is *still* going to result in my browser streaming/re-downloading a new version of the game each time. The bandwidth difference is going to be the same as it would be if you had posted a .zip, modulo the size of the Unity runtime/client.

Updating the web version might actually be *worse* than a stand-alone with live patching because AFAIK you can't patch Unity web-games, it will need to do a full download each time instead of just a diff/patch.

Also, bandwidth is very cheap these days.

Finally, if the complexity of patching is the problem, you don't really need to bother with patches! Just upload the latest version as a .zip into a password-protected folder on your webserver. Tada!

There are plenty of donationware games that use simple automated systems to notify users of an update. AFAICR Jason Rohrer's games use an automated email system that mails you a link to the newest version when it's uploaded -- you could email him and ask how he's doing it, it seems dead simple and is definitely wonderful from a user's perspective.

Ah, my bad! I only checked the FAQ stickied in this forum not the one on the game page (I was worried I'd somehow managed to make some text invisible, which would be just about the most useless super power ever unless it could disappear my rent bills!).

Good to hear you're covering all the bases with the final version, definitely makes sense to have the beta as something that's easier for you (and us) to work with.

As for the connection problems; basically what happens is I get the screen with all my stats from the cleared dungeon and clicke the button to continue. The loading page then appears but hangs for longer than normal and eventually results in a message saying the connection to the server was lost. When I start back up again the progress from that dungeon is wiped out and it reverts back to the previous save. At the moment this is happening approx 1 in 6 times at a guess. As I say, it may well be a problem at my end (I quite often have problems with downloads of large files being corrupted becaise the connection drops out and wont restart, it's definitely a finicky beast my uni's network!).

dislekcia wrote:Connection problems probably have something to do with our server taking a bit of strain (we're moving servers at the moment to deal with the issues, hopefully) and should lighten up soon. That said, if you could be a bit more exact in what's happening when you're losing progress, we can try to make the saving system even more tolerant (it should automatically keep an offline version of your progress until it can reconnect again, so it shouldn't be losing ANY wins at all, that's bad).

Seems to be time related, I've found that the issue happens more on longer games than shorter ones. For the record I'm using Windows 7 with Firefox 5.0.

Edit: Sometimes if I get the reconnection error and I hit retry it'll come up once or twice more, but then after it'll just go back to the main screen but the win isn't recorded, i.e. my gold hasn't increased, haven't completed a quest etc.

Q: I see the Beta is running in my browser. What gives?A: The Beta is going to be changing very often, as we update is with bug fixes and new content. To prevent us from having to send out endless patches, we’re going to keep it on the web during the beta phase, making roll-out much easier. Once the full is launched, there will be a stand-alone and a web client, and your save games will persist across both (given internet access)

...

So yes, the beta is web-based. The full game will have a download client AND a web client AND a phone client AND AND AND...

Towards the end of the beta, you'll probably want to send out some download clients etc for people to pound on, just because they might have different bugs than the web client.

I mean, yes, yes, "-development engine- is totally multiplat! The same code will work on all platforms!" I've been hearing THAT one for over a decade; it's never actually been true in my experience. (True for 99% of code, maybe, but 1% can crash your game...).